


What You Are To Me

by HolyCatsAndRabbits



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Aziraphale's Ring (Good Omens), Ballet, First Kiss, Fluff, GO Holiday Swap 2019, Love Confessions, M/M, Romance, Snow, how long is ten minutes?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-24 19:22:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21583399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolyCatsAndRabbits/pseuds/HolyCatsAndRabbits
Summary: The kiss was surprisingly deep and heated after such light words. Probably because it really had been coming for centuries, if not millennia. Crowley moved his mouth against Aziraphale’s, and the angel parted his lips immediately, welcoming Crowley inside, sharing a very intimate kind of angelic warmth with him. Crowley almost growled with the feeling of it, and he pulled Aziraphale quite firmly into his arms, sinking a hand into the angel’s white curls.Aziraphale wound his arms around Crowley’s neck and made very earnest, very lovely, very happy sounds that communicated exactly what Crowley needed to know. Aziraphale loved him.Written for the Good Omens Holiday Swap 2019 forTaya SigersonCheck out their gorgeous art, y'all!
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 67
Kudos: 313
Collections: Good Omens Holiday Swap 2019





	What You Are To Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TayaSigerson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TayaSigerson/gifts).



**January 15, 1890**

**St. Petersburg, Russia**

Aziraphale did eventually notice, of course, that Crowley was not paying as much attention to the ballet on stage as he was to the angel sitting beside him in the theatre. Aziraphale tried to cover his sudden blush by frowning at Crowley, and whispering, “You’re missing it.” Crowley just smiled at him, continuing to ignore the stage, and Aziraphale managed a flustered roll of his eyes, but his cheeks turned even rosier.

It wasn’t Crowley’s fault. Aziraphale believed that ballet was one of the most beautiful things that had ever been invented. He’d described it once to Crowley as the humans having found a way for an audience to actually see the music as the dancers painted it across the stage. And tonight, as always happened, every romantic detail of the evening was reflected in the angel’s enchanted expression: the lavish stage dressing, the fanciful costumes, the excitement of a world premier, the fact that even the Mariinsky Theatre itself looked like a castle, rising up from fields of snow. Crowley could not imagine how dismal it was for other people to spend an evening like this without Aziraphale’s company.

They had enjoyed seeing Tchaikovsky’s _Swan Lake_ ballet thirteen years earlier. It had been spectacular, but the plot of the ballet was a tragedy. The lovers were united at the end, but only in death. In Tchaikovsky’s _The Sleeping Beauty,_ which was premiering tonight, there was a magical way past such heartache. The Princess Aurora’s castle existed in a world of its own, set apart from time and space, as a hundred years outside the castle passed by in only a night to those inside of it. And after that night, the lovers were united and lived on in the outside world, which had then become safe for them.

Crowley had accompanied the angel to countless artistic performances: ballets, concerts, plays, recitals, readings, anywhere Aziraphale invited him. They had to be careful, of course, to limit their time together lest Heaven or Hell get wind of the fact that the Serpent of Eden and the Guard of its Eastern Gate had become friends, and that the only kind of fighting that these two predestined adversaries ever did was over things like which one of them had caused a herd of sheep to stampede through the marketplace in Athens in 56 BC. (Aziraphale had, and they both knew he had, but the angel was never going to admit to the fact that he’d startled them by suddenly unfurling his wings when he’d gotten an itch. He insisted Crowley had scared the sheep simply because they could sense his snake-like nature, despite the fact that Crowley did not have a history of frightening animals simply by standing next to them. Unless you counted rabbits. But in any case, rabbits weren’t sheep.)

The outside world expected them to be enemies, to plot and scheme and hate. But there was never anything about Aziraphale that Crowley could find _to_ hate. From their first meeting, Aziraphale had spoken to Crowley kindly and treated him as a person, not just a demon. And when they’d both been sent to Earth, the outside world expected them to never seek out the company of the only other immortal there, to remain always alone. But how anyone could think that it was acceptable to allow Aziraphale to feel lonely, Crowley had no idea.

When the ballet ended, and after Aziraphale had managed to talk his way backstage to meet the dancers and musicians (as he always did), they strolled out of the theatre together into a world of falling snow. Aziraphale, still in a highly romantic mood, was entranced. Crowley shivered.

Aziraphale put an arm around the demon and pulled him close. “My poor serpent,” he teased. “My dear, unfortunate, cold-blooded beast.” Aziraphale, of course, wasn’t cold, he was blessed with an unfailing divine warmth. He wasn’t even wearing a coat.

“I’m not a _beast_ ,” Crowley grumbled, “and if you knew how cold it feels to me—”

The crowds had thinned out as they got farther from the theatre, and Aziraphale miracled a blanket and wrapped it around Crowley’s shoulders. “Better?” The blanket was tartan, of course. The demon sighed and a little puff of frozen air escaped the blanket.

“It’s very sweet of you to come all the way to frozen Russia to join me for the evening,” Aziraphale said, with amusement in his voice.

Crowley huffed. “I’d go anywhere for you, angel, you know that.”

Aziraphale apparently did know that, because he didn’t remark on it. “Shall I miracle us to the inn, my dear?” he asked.

“Nah.” Crowley was too busy watching the angel’s white curls collect the crystal snowflakes. Aziraphale possessed a natural angelic beauty, of course, but if you asked Crowley, Aziraphale’s attractiveness went far beyond that of any other angel, because Aziraphale truly loved the things that made up his world. You could see it right on his face. Aziraphale’s eyes would shine when he was excited and darken into a deeper blue when he was amused, and when Aziraphale was truly happy, a little of his angelic aura would shine through and he would give the world a smile that put every other angel to shame.

“This is nice,” Crowley said softly.

Aziraphale tightened his arm around him and looked up at the snowflakes as they fell down toward him. “It is,” he agreed.

Eventually, Aziraphale started chattering about the ballet: the scenes, the fairy-tale characters who had attended the royal wedding, the dances and costumes of the different fairies and how they illustrated where they were from and what kind of magic they had. And Crowley knew from experience that he would recall this, the angel’s re-telling of the story, his passionate description of all the allusions and artistry and arcs of the plot, far more than he would the ballet itself. That whenever Crowley heard Tchaikovsky’s score he would not see fairies and a sleeping princess, but an angel with snowflakes in his hair and his cheeks rosy with the cold.

Aziraphale was as flushed now as when he’d found himself the object of Crowley’s undivided attention in the theatre, and the sight of that color back in his cheeks created a very familiar feeling in Crowley’s chest. But for some reason tonight the sensation didn't seem so much like a weight on Crowley’s heart as it did the slow shifting of a heavy door as it finally gave under pressure and found itself beginning to open.

Crowley didn’t really mean to do it, but when the wind kicked up a bit, swirling the snowflakes around them, Crowley picked the angel right up off of his feet and twirled him around in the air with them. Aziraphale shrieked and laughed and braced his hands on Crowley’s shoulders, and when Crowley set him down, the angel’s cheeks were brighter still, and there it was: a hint of Azriaphale’s golden angelic aura glowing beneath his skin, and that _smile_. 

Aziraphale looked up into Crowley’s face, his blue eyes soft and impossibly fond. He let his hands drift down from Crowley’s shoulders to rest against his chest. “Oh, my dear,” he said, with a hitch of leftover laughter, “what have we gotten ourselves into this time?”

“Maybe a little more trouble than usual,” Crowley admitted. He slipped one of his hands against Aziraphale’s cheek. “Angel,” he said softly, “can I?”

Aziraphale sighed. “Do you know, I’ve spent centuries wishing you would.”

“Well, it seems I’m several centuries overdue then. That’s a lot, even for me.”

“Better late than never, yes?” the angel whispered.

The kiss was surprisingly deep and heated after such light words. Probably because it really had been coming for centuries, if not millennia. Crowley moved his mouth against Aziraphale’s, and the angel parted his lips immediately, welcoming Crowley inside, sharing a very intimate kind of angelic warmth with him. Crowley almost growled with the feeling of it, and he pulled Aziraphale quite firmly into his arms, sinking a hand into the angel’s white curls.

Aziraphale wound his arms around Crowley’s neck and made very earnest, very lovely, very happy sounds that communicated exactly what Crowley needed to know. Aziraphale loved him. 

And as usual, ineffably, the angel and demon were somehow moving in the same direction, together. 6000 years earlier Aziraphale had given Crowley friendly conversation and shelter on their first meeting. He’d done the same tonight, chattering to Crowley about the ballet while warming him in the snowfall. Aziraphale was the one constant of Crowley’s existence. The only one who ever kept promises made to a Fallen Angel. He was the only thing Crowley had ever figured out how to love.

The kiss became softer and more delicate until it finally found its end. But Crowley couldn’t let the angel go. He wrapped Aziraphale in his arms (Crowley was suddenly _much_ warmer) and walked with him all the way to the inn and then into Aziraphale’s room.

Once the door shut, Aziraphale looked up at Crowley with pure ethereal love in his eyes, something Crowley had once believed he'd never see again. “We can’t,” the angel said softly.

“I know.”

Aziraphale made a frustrated little noise and pointed toward the hallway. “I mean ten minutes from now Heaven or Hell could come walking right through that door.”

“I know.”

They looked at each other for a moment, and then Aziraphale said, “Well, I do believe that gives us ten minutes.”

Crowley backed Aziraphale against the wall and claimed his mouth, giving the angel the kind of worship that Crowley knew he deserved. Aziraphale made those delighted little noises again and Crowley felt a wondrous warmth in his soul, the way he always did when he was able to make Aziraphale happy.

Aziraphale ran his fingers through Crowley’s hair, cut short for the fashion of the day, but long enough for the angel to get a gentle grip on him. Crowley moaned a little against Aziraphale’s mouth and the angel made a lovely sighing noise. Crowley caught him up tighter in his arms and just simply _loved_ him.

What passed was probably not an amount of time that the outside world would have called _ten minutes_ , but in fairness, it did seem to be the kind of night where time might find itself suspended.

When they finally broke apart, Aziraphale wrapped his arms around Crowley’s waist and leaned his head against the demon’s chest. “You know,” he said quietly, “I once thought there were so many things that I would never like about the world—the cold, the rainy days, the bitterness of wine, the sting of spicy food. The companionship of a demon. But that is what you are to me—something I thought I would never care for that is now more beloved to me than anything in creation.”

“I realized I loved you in Malacca. 1472.” Crowley pressed a kiss against Aziraphale’s white curls, slightly damp now with melted snow. “I took you to that library and you were so ridiculously happy. And then you looked at _me_ the same way. Bloody inconsiderate of you, actually, you nearly blinded me.”

Aziraphale laughed and pulled back so that he could see Crowley’s face. “You know, my dear, what _they_ think isn’t as important to me as what _you_ think. If you want this too, then we have it. Right now.” His eyes fell on the playbill from the ballet, lying where he’d dropped it on the bed. “And you know, it could be that we only have to wait another hundred years before the world changes around us.” He smiled bravely. “Might be a little longer. But until then, we have this.”

“We have it,” Crowley echoed, grasping Aziraphale’s hands in his own.

To Crowley’s surprise, Aziraphale pulled away enough to remove the pinky ring from his finger. He held it to the light as it shrunk itself slightly, and then he took one of Crowley’s hands and slipped the tiny golden wings over the demon’s little finger. His blue eyes met Crowley’s, unafraid.

Crowley went to sleep that night in London, leaving Aziraphale in St. Petersburg. But even alone Crowley was warm, inside and out, and it might have been an angelic miracle or it might have just been love, but once Aziraphale’s ring slipped onto Crowley’s finger, his hands were never cold again.

oOo

**Present Day**

The day after the world didn’t end, the same day that an angel and a demon didn’t meet their own end, Crowley and Aziraphale had dinner at the Ritz, and then strolled through St. James park. They had walked through the park many times. They had shared a meal at a restaurant far more often than that.

What was different now was that as they walked, Crowley very casually caught Aziraphale’s hand in his own and twined their fingers together. Aziraphale felt a little like his heart missed a beat somewhere and lost its footing, crashing inelegantly into one of the walls of the angel’s chest.

Crowley was his. The beautiful demon with the golden eyes and fire-bright hair, with his intense gaze even behind dark glasses, and his strangely graceless-graceful human-serpentine way of moving had belonged to the angel for ages, but that had been private knowledge. Now there were at least fourteen people in the park who could, if they liked, glance over at the angel and the demon walking together and also be aware that they belonged to each other.

“Let’s,” said Crowley—and Aziraphale looked up into his face rather breathlessly, waiting for whatever wonderful thing was going to come next—“go ice skating. On the pond there.” He pointed with his other hand.

Aziraphale’s actual foot missed a step now and he had to take a little hop to regain his balance. He glanced around the park, taking in the gradually turning leaves, the green grass, the people without overcoats. “We can’t possibly,” Aziraphale said, in the tone that people use when stating the obvious but trying to sound kind at the same time. “It’s barely autumn. Nowhere near freezing.”

“Oh, you didn’t hear?” Crowley asked, giving the angel a rather self-satisfied smile. “There’s a new rule on Earth. People who save the world can go ice skating anytime they like.”

Aziraphale tried to speak gently. “Oh, my dear, but—they’ll notice us, a miracle like that. Upstairs, Downstairs. And now especially, we need to be off their radar. I mean, we just got done—” Aziraphale looked at their clasped fingers, and then, reluctantly, he let go of Crowley’s hand. “I’m sorry, I just don’t think it’s a good idea right now.”

“It’s all right,” Crowley said very quickly, in that way he did when he was disappointed but trying not to disappoint Aziraphale. He twisted his hands together and pulled them apart again. “It was just a thought—”

When Crowley turned his head away, Aziraphale hit him straight in the neck with a miracled snowball.

“Oi!” Crowley yelled, a grin on his face despite the snow shifting underneath his collar. “Angel!”

Aziraphale shrieked in laughter as he caught Crowley’s return snowball on his shoulder, and then it was _snowing_ in St. James Park in the beginning of September. Big, lovely snowflakes drifted down from the sky, and where they met the warm ground, they didn’t melt but stuck, forming a light glaze of snow on the green grass and sidewalks. The other people in the park gasped and laughed and brought out their phones to record it and started making snowballs of their own.

The air still wasn’t terribly cold, but of course, the snow was, and Crowley quickly found himself dressed in a black coat with a red cap and a scarf around his neck, plus black snow boots. “ _Angel_ ,” Crowley complained, with a huge smile on his face.

The snow fell slowly but accumulated miraculously quickly, and after a while, there was a full-scale snowball fight going, one side of the park against the other, with people building forts to hide behind and stockpiling their ready-made weapons. 

Eventually, after helping to build a rather elaborate fort, Aziraphale realized that there were far more people fighting on Crowley’s end of the park. The angel threw a snowball at the demon to get his attention and then pointed at him in indignation. “You are _tempting_ people to your side!”

Crowely blinked his eyes in innocent surprise, touching a hand to his chest. “What, it’s my fault people like to throw snowballs at angels? I’m to blame the forces of good make such enticing targets?”

Aziraphale threw another snowball at him. Crowley ducked elegantly out of the way, and his return volley caught Aziraphale in the chest. The angel stumbled and tipped over into the snow, partially collapsing one outside edge of the fort.

Crowley crossed the no-man’s land between them and came to stand over Aziraphale, a gloating smile on his face. “Mortally wounded, angel?”

It took a while for Aziraphale to stop giggling enough to answer him. Eventually, he managed to say, “It’s quite hopeless, I’m afraid.”

Crowley took the angel’s hand to help him up, and kept pulling until Aziraphale rested against Crowley’s chest, with the demon’s arm wrapped around his shoulders. The angel felt his clothes become miraculously dry against his skin. “Let’s get you to the hospital tent, then,” Crowley offered.

“Awfully sporting of you.” Aziraphale waved a hand to fix the snow wall that he’d damaged.

Crowley shrugged. “Well, I think I’d rather like to see you live to fight another day. One doesn’t always come across such a worthy opponent.”

“You mean one who will put up with you even after you used your demonic wiles to cheat.”

“Ah...possibly. Besides, you’ll notice we didn't actually go ice skating yet."

Aziraphale rested his head against Crowley's shoulder. "Another day, then, my dear, for sure."

They reached the Bentley, and turned back for a moment to watch the snowball fight continue all across the park. The snow had stopped falling, and soon enough everything would melt again, but for this one suspended moment, outside of the proper time and flow of seasons, there was a joyous magic in the place.

Bourbon and hot chocolate were in order when they resettled themselves at the bookshop. That led to wine, and to a rather silly discussion about—actually, Aziraphale wasn’t entirely sure what it was about. Sheep, maybe? Or rabbits? Greece? He was really just listening to the cadence of Crowley’s voice, the rise and fall of the breaths in the demon’s chest, the way the wine bottle clinked against his glass and his glass clunked against the coffee table.

Eventually Crowley looked at him with amusement. “You’re exhausted, angel. I know you don’t sleep much, but after the snowball fight, and you know, Armaggedidn’t, and surviving our trials…”

“Well, all the wine isn’t helping,” Aziraphale admitted.

“Why don’t you just curl up on the couch for a bit?” Crowley asked. He stood up and pulled an old tartan blanket from the back of his chair.

And then he came down to his knees to remove Aziraphale’s shoes. He was _so close,_ and was actively engaged in removing some of the angel’s clothing, and Aziraphale’s voice squeaked a little. “Oh, sleep now? I was thinking maybe we could, ah...well, at least discuss...” He wondered how obvious it was that he was watching the way the lamplight caught the golden ring on Crowley’s little finger as he undid the fastenings of Aziraphale’s shoes.

But when the shoes were gone, Crowley just stood up and backed away. “Oh, I’m far too tired to discuss anything right now,” he said, unfortunately sounding quite sensible. “You get some shut-eye there and I’ll sleep in the chair.”

“Oh. Well, I have a bed upstairs—” In his somewhat inebriated state, Aziraphale blushed before he realized he was blushing.

But Crowley seemed to take no notice of it anyway. “Nah, I’m fine here, don’t worry.”

Aziraphale tried to hide his disappointment as he let his eyes drift closed.

oOo

There was not often an overlap between tales of romance and the world of reality. Some things told in stories were too pure, too fanciful to ever become real. But occasionally, something from the realm of fairy tales managed to cross over and live in the outside world, and on this night, the night of the magical St. James Park September snowfall, to Aziraphale’s great and everlasting delight, he discovered that it was, in fact, possible to be awakened by true love’s kiss.

Aziraphale recognized the kiss for what it was even before he opened his eyes. He knew Crowley’s scent, of course, and he knew his touch. The angel could tell that the light pressure of fingers on his arm, the heat of another body stealing into his was the demon that he loved. But it was more than that. He knew it had to be Crowley kissing him because this kind of soft, warm, comforting-comfortable press of lips together was a kiss that a person could only give when they were truly in love and knew that their love was returned. And so when Aziraphale opened his eyes to see Crowley bending over him, his golden eyes seeming to glow in the dim light, he was not surprised at all. Just enchanted.

“Well,” the angel sighed. “That was quite—” But that was the point at which he let his gaze travel over the room, and his words drifted away from him.

They were in the bookshop still, Aziraphale could feel that. But there were no books, no shelves, no coffee table or cash register. The walls were grey stone and the floor looked to be the same, although it was hard to tell because the whole of it was covered in roses of every color, red, pink, yellow, white, peach, and all the shades in between. The only piece of furniture was an enormous bed, which had a base of wood carved into the shapes of roses and angels, and was draped with gauzy curtains and trailing luxurious velvet blankets onto the floor, and because Aziraphale was, as it happened, lying on this bed at the moment, he could tell that the mattress was almost impossibly soft.

Aziraphale then noticed that his usual cream and tartan clothes had changed into a man’s white breeches, stockings, and blouse with a white doublet over them, embroidered with golden thread in repeating patterns of roses and angel’s wings. Aziraphale looked back at Crowley and realized that he was dressed all in black, a black blouse beneath a black doublet embroidered in gold, with serpents, of course.

This costume flattered Crowley’s lean form in a way that made Aziraphale flush with heat. Breeches and stockings outlined the slim curves of Crowley’s legs, and the doublet was cut broadly over his shoulders and sharply in at Crowley’s slender waist. The blouse gaped open at his throat, revealing pale skin beneath it. The only real color to Crowley then was the fiery brightness of his hair.

“ _Oh,_ _Crowley,”_ Azirphale whispered.

“We didn’t quite make it in a hundred years,” Crowley said softly. “We’re twenty-nine years overdue. But better late than never, yes?”

Aziraphale nearly started weeping. Crowley sat on the edge of the bed and pulled him into his arms, pressing the angel’s head against his chest. “This is what you are to _me_ , angel. The ending of pain.”

Crowley caught Aziraphale’s hand, and produced a very familiar ring of golden angel wings. Crowley was still wearing his, though, Aziraphale could see it glowing in the soft light. Crowley put the duplicate on Aziraphale’s little finger.

Aziraphale grasped Crowley around the waist and pulled him onto the bed. They collapsed in a pile of arms and legs, tangling up in a fairly serpentine manner, and Crowley laughed. “This is not how the ballet goes, Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale moved to where he could look into Crowley’s eyes. “If you think I’m wasting this bed and these outfits, you are insane.”

Crowley laughed again, and Aziraphale then discovered that while it was quite a wondrous thing to sneak stolen kisses for what was supposedly ten minutes, and to be woken up by what was probably the most romantic kiss that existed, it was actually even better to be able to kiss the person you loved and not have to stop.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Taya Sigerson, I hope you liked it! I had so much fun writing it. <3  
>   
> I actually did not have the whole Sleeping Beauty plot thing planned when I had them going to see the ballet. I just like Tchaikovsky. Woo, free metaphors!  
>   
> [Sleeping Beauty ballet](https://www.classicfm.com/composers/tchaikovsky/guides/sleeping-beauty-guide-pictures/)  
> [The Rose Adagio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTkIyYMP27c) mentioned in the above article (done by a different ballet company)  
> [True Love's Kiss](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUKoeW5C56U%22) (by yet another ballet company, but this is what I based the bedroom scene on)  
> [Mariinsky Theatre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariinsky_Theatre)  
> [Malacca Sultanate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malacca_Sultanate)  
>   
> So what was requested was our boys having fun together, sweet fluff and no angst, historical time period or the present, romance ok. The problem with that prompt for my stupid brain is that I LOVE to write romance, so I immediately thought of a plot where Aziraphale and Crowley almost get together in the past, and then the romantic tension is resolved in the present. Except...there’s not supposed to be any tension in this fic. And then I realized that it was actually such a great idea that Aziraphale and Crowley could be so confident in each other that they were okay being not-officially-together-yet in the real world but still a couple in their own world. This gave me a whole new perspective, and I loved it! So I hope you enjoyed your (almost completely) angst-free, soft and fluffy, and yet romantic fic (assuming I pulled it off). Thanks! <3  
>   
> Find me on tumblr [HolyCatsAndRabbits](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/holycatsandrabbits)  
> Twitter [@DannyeChase](https://twitter.com/DannyeChase)  
> Facebook [Dannye Chase](https://facebook.com/DannyeChase)  
> and Instagram [dannye_chase](https://www.instagram.com/dannye_chase/)


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